Death of a Murderer

by Rupert Thomson

  “He went flying. Cut his head quite badly.”

  “We had to call the ambulance.”

  “The sausages all burned, remember?”

  “And the chicken drumsticks. Sue had to get a meat pie out of the freezer.”

  “We drank a lot that night, didn’t we?”

  The episode had upset Billy. He would have gone to the hospital with Harry if the paramedics hadn’t told him it wasn’t necessary. Though Harry had never actually set foot in their house—modesty stopped him venturing beyond the back door—he was like a member of the family. If Billy ever had good news, Harry would be one of the first to know—and Harry had seen him at his lowest too…One night, not long after Emma was born, Billy was standing on the track behind his house when something seemed to reach down into him and wrench the tears out by force. He kept glancing at the bedroom window, afraid that Sue might hear. Then a piece of the darkness near him shifted and came loose, and a voice said, “Is that you, Billy?”

  “Yes,” he managed. “Yes, it’s me.”

  In good weather, Harry often sat up late in the allotments. He had his own shed and a couple of folding chairs. As he’d admitted to Billy once, he didn’t have much to go home to.

  “Are you all right?” Harry said.

  “I think so,” Billy said. “More or less.”

  “I was just sitting here, having a beer.” The dark air flooded in around Harry’s voice, seeming to cushion it. “Would you like a beer, Billy?”

  “Yes,” Billy said. “Thanks. That’d be great.”

  “I think there’s one here somewhere…”

  As Harry rummaged for a beer, Billy stepped closer. The apex of the shed’s roof showed black and sharp against the sky. Harry pushed a cool can into Billy’s hand and set up the other chair for him.

  “That’s clever of you, Harry, keeping a drink out here.”

  “Well,” Harry said, “you’ve got to, haven’t you?”

  They sat side by side in the darkness. The beer tasted metallic, almost rusty, as if it had been made not from hops but from bits of old machinery.

  “Sue asleep, is she?”

  “I hope so.”

  To keep the birds away, Harry had hung CDs from horizontal canes. When the air stirred, they would fidget, knocking and clicking against each other. Sometimes one of them glinted silver as it twisted on its string. After a while, a train clattered past.

  “They go all the way to Liverpool Street, those electric trains,” Harry said. And then, sometime later, “When my wife died, I couldn’t stop crying for a month.”

  Pinching his eyes against the glare of the snack-bar lights, Billy sighed, then took a sip of his black coffee.

  “Is he still alive?” Phil asked.

  “Harry?” Billy said. “Yes, he’s doing well. He still comes up to the allotments, even when it’s raining. He’s growing delphiniums again this year. He loves delphiniums.”

  “Good for him.”

  “When me and Sue got married, we invited Harry to our wedding. He came instead of my father. I’d never seen Harry in a suit before. Usually, in the summer, he just wears trousers and braces and a flat cap, and he’ll have chalky stains all over him from the talcum powder he puts on after he has a bath. The suit, though. It was brown tweed, stiff as cardboard—and he’d stuck one of his own nasturtiums in his buttonhole. You know what my best man, Neil, said? ‘Who’s the scarecrow?’” Billy smiled at the memory.

  “Instead of your father?” Phil said.

  “What?” Billy said. “Oh right—well, I couldn’t have invited him. I didn’t know where he was.”

  Phil watched him across the rim of his paper cup.

  “I never knew my father,” Billy went on. “He left before I was born.”

  Shaking his head, Phil looked down at the table.

  “He was a musician,” Billy said, “you know?”

  “That’s no excuse.”

  Billy was tempted to ask Phil why his wife had walked out on him, and whether he was happier since she had gone—at four-fifteen in the morning, in these extraordinary circumstances, he might have got away with it—but in the end he thought Phil probably had enough on his mind without him adding to it.

  “When all this is over,” Billy said, “you should come round. I know Sue would like to see you.”

  Phil nodded, fine wrinkles multiplying at the edges of his eyes. “I’d like that.”

  Shortly afterwards, he was called to the control room in reception, leaving Billy in the snack bar by himself. Billy drained his coffee, wincing at the bitterness, then he threw the cup in the bin and started back to the mortuary.

  31

  Billy was Glenn Tyler’s second child. Charlie was the first, born five years earlier, in 1951. According to their mother, Glenn had been away at the time, touring America, and didn’t set eyes on Charlie until he was eight months old, his sole contribution being the name—Charlie for Charlie Parker, of course. With Billy, it was different. Glenn had no record to cut, no live dates booked. There was no reason not to be there, which must have put the fear of God into him. He left two months before the birth, and this time he didn’t even bother to suggest a name. Maureen had her new baby boy christened “William Douglas,” after her maternal grandfather, whom she adored.

  Glenn came back to Weston once, when Billy was seven. Billy had no memory of anything his father said or did that day, or even of what he looked like. It had been sunny, and his father had parked across the street, the powder-blue Cortina standing out against the curved white wall of the pub. He wore boots with pointed toes and pieces of elastic in the sides. A car, a pair of shoes—and that was it. His father who had returned, but without any warning, and just for the afternoon. “He only ever thinks of himself,” Maureen said afterwards, on more than one occasion. “Does as he pleases. Always has.”

  Gathering his reports together, Billy slid them back into the folder. He didn’t think he would be doing any more paperwork before he went home. He held his Thermos over his cup and shook it. Three drops—not even enough to cover the bottom. He swallowed it anyway, then put the flask and cup into his bag, along with the folder. Back in his chair, he leaned forwards, elbows on his knees, and stared down into the drain. He had only seen his father one other time, but that was ten years later, and his father never even knew.

  Some weeks short of his eighteenth birthday, Billy saw a fly-poster on a wall in Liverpool, advertising live jazz at the Iron Door on Seal Street. the glenn tyler sextet, it said in bold black capitals. Then, in smaller letters, one night only! He stood quite still and waited for his heart to slow down. The wind, briny and cold, pulled at his coat, his hair. Glenn Tyler…That had to be his father, didn’t it? Surely there couldn’t be two Glenn Tylers who played jazz. Not yet knowing what he was going to do, he wrote the details down on a scrap of paper, which he folded and pushed to the bottom of his trouser pocket. He didn’t say a word about it to his mother. As for Charlie, he was in London, at medical school, and wouldn’t be home till Christmas.

  When the night arrived, Billy told his mother he was having a drink with an old schoolfriend who had heard about a job. It was only a month or two since he had returned from his holiday in Europe with Raymond, and he was still living at home. He hadn’t yet decided what course his life should take. He knew he needed to earn money, though. His mother had to work hard to make ends meet—she was employed as a pharmacist, in Boots—and he wanted to be able to give her something for his keep.

  The band appeared on stage at nine o’clock. There were five men, all middle-aged, all white, but Billy couldn’t see anyone who looked like his father, and his stomach felt hot, as if he might be about to vomit. The music had already been going on for several minutes when a man holding a saxophone emerged from the wings. Of course, Billy thought. Sextet. The man didn’t so much as glance at the people who had come to see him; he simply lifted a hand in their direction. He was wearing a suit made of shiny silver material, with a black shir
t underneath, and his dark hair was slicked back. Billy recognised him from a photo his grandma had shown him once, and also because if he narrowed his eyes he seemed to be looking at a taller, rangier version of Charlie. He felt sick again, but in a different way.

  Standing against the wall, Billy fixed his gaze on the man in the silver suit. He didn’t listen to the music, though he was aware of it as the hectic backdrop to his thoughts, which were halting and stilted. He noticed how the man launched into solos with his eyes closed, as if frightened of whatever was in front of him, and then, when the solo finished and he took the instrument from his mouth, his eyes opened again, and even though he was being applauded, the expression on his face was glowering, almost hostile, as if people couldn’t possibly appreciate what he’d just played—or perhaps his resentment was aimed at the music itself, at his attempt to master it and his inevitable failure. Billy tried to see himself in the man—a feature, a gesture—but there was nothing obvious. At the same time, he knew he was looking at his father. He felt it somewhere deep down, a sharp tug in his guts.

  At the end of the first set, the musicians put aside their instruments and occupied two tables near the stage. Cigarettes were handed round. A bottle of Johnny Walker appeared, and drinks were poured. There were two women sitting with his father. One wore a red cardigan that was cut low at the front, and her arm rested carelessly on his left shoulder. Even from across the room Billy could see her breasts lift when she breathed in. The other woman was dressed entirely in black.

  Swallowing hard, he walked over to their table. He didn’t say anything at first. He couldn’t. His mouth felt numb, clumsy. The woman in black glanced up at him, but her face didn’t change. She had arching eyebrows and dark wavy hair, and her teeth were as small and fragile as rice crispies. He cleared his throat.

  “Mr. Tyler?”

  The name had never sounded so foreign to him—sour somehow, and thin, like lemon juice—and yet, in his everyday life, he used it all the time.

  His father’s face came up slowly, lazily, and he was slanting his eyes against the smoke from his own cigarette.

  “What can I do for you, kid?”

  “Nothing,” Billy said. “I enjoyed the music, that’s all.”

  “Thanks.”

  Billy held his hand out over the table. His father laid his cigarette on the edge of the ashtray, in a smooth groove, and they shook hands.

  Father and son, Billy thought. Flesh and blood.

  As he was turning away, he imagined he saw a glimmer of recognition in the look Glenn Tyler gave him. Up to that moment, Tyler had been playing the big man, casual, amused, not paying too much attention, but now his eyes seemed to tighten. No, it wasn’t recognition exactly. More like uncertainty or wariness. Or even, maybe, curiosity.

  “Hey, kid,” his father said.

  Was it the handshake that had affected him? Had he felt a vibration, a charge—a kind of resonance? Or was it Billy’s face? Something visual he couldn’t quite put his finger on. An echo of Maureen, the woman he had married and then abandoned…

  Billy acted as if he hadn’t heard. He was making for the door that led out to the street. He had seen all he wanted to.

  “Hey!”

  Billy kept on walking.

  Outside, the rain was coming down in great blown sheets. A filthy night. Lowering his head, he began to run, like someone guilty of wrongdoing.

  After half a mile he slowed to a walk and turned into a cobbled alleyway. He was soaking wet, and panting; his throat burned. Cardboard boxes had been stacked against a wall of blackened brick. The back of a warehouse, by the look of it. Near by were several tall metal bins. The rain whitened as it dropped through the glare of a security light. Replaying the past couple of hours, he saw himself staring gormlessly at his father up on stage. He saw himself approach the table with the bland, blurred look of an idiot.

  Hey, kid.

  He went over to the closest bin and kicked it as viciously as he could. It toppled, then rolled into the middle of the alley. Rubbish spilled on to the cobble-stones. A bottle smashed. Not satisfied yet, not even remotely satisfied, he kicked another bin, but this one must have weighed more because it didn’t move at all. Pain flared in his right foot, and he bent down, clutching the toe of his shoe. “Fuck,” he said. “Shit.” Rain dripped down into his eyes. He picked up a piece of glass, pushed his coat-sleeve back and drew the makeshift blade across the outside of his forearm. It was like a magic trick, blood conjured out of nothing.

  He caught the last train out of Lime Street. From Runcorn station, it was a twenty-minute walk, most of it uphill. The rain had stopped, but the pain in his foot was worse, and by the time he neared his house he was limping badly.

  His mother was still awake when he got in. She looked up from the book that she was reading, and the soft, delighted look she usually greeted him with was quickly replaced by one of alarm as she noticed the blood on his sleeve.

  “What happened to you?” she said.

  “I got in a fight,” he said. “Someone came for me with a bottle.”

  “Oh, Billy…”

  He pushed his shirtsleeve back and showed her.

  “That’s a nasty cut,” she said.

  “It was my fault. I said something I shouldn’t have.”

  “Why on earth—”

  “It won’t happen again, Mum. I promise.”

  She sat at the kitchen table, and he stood beside her, at her shoulder, as she swabbed the wound with iodine. It stung so much that it brought tears to his eyes. Different tears from the ones he’d imagined.

  “You really ought to have stitches,” his mother said.

  Billy told her it would be fine. “You’ve done a grand job,” he said, and leaning down, he gave her a kiss on the top of her head.

  “What about your friend?” she said. “Did you see him?”

  “Yes. There wasn’t any work, though.” He winced as he shifted his weight from one leg to the other. “I think I’ve hurt my foot.”

  Their GP told him that he had broken three toes. He would tape them together, he said. Time would do the rest. “Just don’t kick any more cars,” he added, peering at Billy over the rims of his spectacles.

  Billy grinned. “It was a dustbin, actually.”

  He showed his damaged foot to Charlie when he came home for Christmas the following week. Charlie explained that the only important toe on your foot was the big one. If you lost your big toe, you wouldn’t be able to walk, he said. You might not even be able to stand up.

  “So I broke something that doesn’t matter?” Billy said.

  Charlie just looked at him and smiled.

  32

  This time she didn’t startle him. He sensed that he could rouse her simply by letting his thoughts drift in a particular direction. When he turned to face her, he saw that she was wearing the lilac suit again. Her eyebrows were plucked, and brown lines had been drawn on in their place. On the table in front of her were two packets of cigarettes. She must be thinking of staying for longer than usual. She’d come prepared.

  No, he wasn’t startled, nor did he feel nervous. He had never appeared on TV, or on the front page of a national newspaper. The media were not in the habit of discussing his fate. He was an ordinary person, and yet her fame—her notoriety—had no impact on him.

  “I’m ordinary too,” she said, little puffs of cigarette smoke emerging with the words. “If I hadn’t met him, I would have gone on being ordinary.”

  That was debatable, of course. But it was the first time she had referred directly to the man who had been her lover, her mentor, the man who was now serving a life sentence in Ashworth, a high-security prison for the criminally insane. He had outlived her, even though he had been on a hunger strike for the past three years, and was being force-fed through a tube. He had outlived her, even though he was the one who wanted to die. He wouldn’t have been too happy when he heard the news.

  “I’ve got a question for you,” Billy said.
“Another question.”

  Half an inch of ash teetered on the end of her cigarette. “Still no ashtray?” she said, looking round the room. “Oh well.” She held her cigarette over the drain and flicked the filter with her thumb. The ash tumbled softly through the air and disappeared. She turned back to him again, her pencilled eyebrows raised, which gave her a raffish, faintly sarcastic air.

  “Who did you love most?” he said.

  “My mother.” She hadn’t given herself time to think. She hadn’t needed to, perhaps. Either she had seen the question coming, or she had simply told the truth. She was still watching him, waiting to see how he would react to her answer, daring him to make something of it.

  “What about your father?” Billy said.

  “I don’t want to talk about him.”

  Her father had been away fighting in the war until she was three. When he returned, she was sent to live with her grandmother. Later, crippled by an accident at work, he became a drinker, moody and violent.

  “Your mother…” Billy nodded slowly. “I thought you might say that.”

  “You don’t believe me?”

  He looked away. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe her. It was just that the answer seemed predictable. He had somehow known that she wouldn’t be able to admit to loving the man with whom she’d committed those atrocities, the man whose name was now linked eternally, inextricably, with hers. From a distance of thirty years, she would have found that love hard to credit, let alone acknowledge. She would have had to call it something else—something less idealistic or more extreme. An obsession. A madness. She might even have blotted it out altogether. The knee-high boots and miniskirts. The nickname he had given her. The sado-masochistic sex. What’s more, she’d probably been in love with people since. That fellow inmate, for instance, the one who was a singer—and there were rumours of affairs with prison guards as well. The love she remembered, though, was the one that came first. A daughter’s love. He tried to imagine the woman as a little girl, but it made him feel uncomfortable. It was as if he were placing her on the same footing as her victims; it seemed insensitive at best, at worst a kind of violation. Yet there must have been a time, mustn’t there, when she was innocent? People didn’t want to think about that, of course. There was one image of her in the popular mind—the dyed-blonde hair, the brooding gaze—and that was it. There was no before, no after. No childhood, and no old age. Those photos taken in various prisons over the years—who were they supposed to fool? All those different hairstyles. That wasn’t her…And as he sat there at the table it suddenly occurred to him that he had never seen a picture of her as a child, not even one. Didn’t her mother have any? If not, what had happened to them? Had they been suppressed? Destroyed? It was a strange absence, unsettling, almost unjust, though he thought he understood the need for it.